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how do you transfer pc files on an external drive to a mac

My friend is wanting to purchase a Mac (at Best Buy, of all the horrible places to buy a Mac)! Her house was struck by lightning, frying her PC. She has all of her files on an external drive. She has been told by the Best Buy person she can not transfer PC files from an external drive to a Mac. I disagree. HELP!

iMac 21.5″ 4K, macOS 10.15

Posted on Sep 2, 2020 10:14 AM

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Posted on Sep 2, 2020 10:28 AM

It will all depend on what she needs to transfer. If they are all data files, then they should be transferable. No assurance they will be usable unless the applications used to create them have equivalents that work on a Mac. If they are applications, then they will not work on a Mac although they are transferable.


Macs can read/write FAT formatted disks from a PC and can read but not write NTFS formatted disks.


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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Sep 2, 2020 10:28 AM in response to PAKimmel

It will all depend on what she needs to transfer. If they are all data files, then they should be transferable. No assurance they will be usable unless the applications used to create them have equivalents that work on a Mac. If they are applications, then they will not work on a Mac although they are transferable.


Macs can read/write FAT formatted disks from a PC and can read but not write NTFS formatted disks.


how do you transfer pc files on an external drive to a mac

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